Steam Deck: VRAM - 1GB vs 4GB; Put To The Test on SteamOS and Windows
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- čas přidán 14. 01. 2023
- You've probably heard of the "4GB VRAM Hack" on Steam Deck and are wondering if you should be using it. Since there are millions of combinations that would have to be tested to get a definitive answer, I'm going to show you three games - two on SteamOS and one on Windows 10 running the same thing using both the default 1GB and the "hacked" 4gb setting.
Of course, we'll show you how to make the change yourself if you want to try it with your own games. It is fully reversible.
Is it better? I'll tell you my thoughts and you can fashion your own opinions.
Note: This is also called UMA Frame Buffer Size in the BIOS. Entering BIOS is powering on while holding VOL+ (not VOL- as mentioned in the video). - Hry
Changing the UMA buffer only changes the initial VRAM allocation - the system can still use more than 1 GB and dynamically allocates it when needed.
As you found, it really doesn't affect performance at all, and it can actually cause adverse effects. For example, in RDR2, there are special Mesa workarounds for how memory is allocated, and increasing the UMA buffer will affect performance negatively as a result.
I've done a lot of back and forth testing and I only noticed an improvement in one scenario. In Spider-Man Remastered, if you swing around the city fast enough on the Deck (soon after booting up the game), the game may pause itself to load in assets around you. This doesn't seem to happen when the UMA buffer is set to 4 GB.
In general, I'd recommend leaving this setting at stock.
As of 3.4.4 , is rdr 2 still have negative performance from the vram fix or is negligible ?
im playing batman akrham and its a night and day when i change it to 4gb of vram and it shows on graphic settings that i have 4gb
Una buffer to 4gb allows resident evil 4 remake to run at higher settings at locked 30 when all the shaders are downloaded
So my experience and reason for trying the Vram increase in bios. GTA4 (steam version) would not work on my deck. I'd load into game around the 3rd mission. No NPCs, no Cars just quiet streets and missing assets and eventually the game would crash as I ran far enough away from home. Then I'd have to reboot the deck.
It kinda makes senses. The game wanted 2GB vram and the deck had 1G. This game is old enough that it was never written to expect the vram/ram shared pool behavior that modern APUs do. This is apparently common for laptops with iGPUs. The uma buffer is just a minimum guarantee and the vram can claim more physical ram if it is available. Ram can fall back on the page or swap file but vram needs fast physical memory. So increasing the vram to 4GB and the swap file in steamOS to 16gb with the cryobite utilities script made it so the game could be played. It increased combability not necessarily performance. Some better 1% lows for vram heavy games or games that stream in a lot of assets is also feasible. But I really just did it so I could play my favorite GTA again.
It doesn't hurt performance in any other games so I see no reason not to enable it if you find a game that could benefit from it.
Thanks for a nice write up.
@@Darkuni Cheers.
i am playing gta4 max settings on the deck and it runs flawlessly...and i have 1gb..
So far I've been playing GTA IV with 1GVRM everything standard, and everything is working great 60FPS constants
try it on arkham knight and its a night and day changing it to 4gb vram
Good video! One thing, to go into the Bios press 'Power and Audio +'. (so not -, like you said)
Fixed in the comments ;)
Thats why.... Thanks
No details of the settings being used for each game shown. Also performance tweaks are usually cumulative. One change isn’t going to see a major jump, but all of them together will usually result in a tangible difference. 2 frames here, 3 frames there, etc may add up to 6-10 FPS bump and may push a game from struggling for a passable minimum and keeping a decent 40.
Another point is that some games rely more on GPU, and some more on CPU. So at times, you’ll want to adjust the GPU/CPU to give the other more room to dance.
All fair points.
How are those fair points tho? This video is about the difference of 1 and 4 gigs of vram.. the other settings arent relevant in this comparison, especially since here we have 3 different games tested, not only 1 where it may be an outlier and 4 gigs doesnt improve anything.. no, this test shows confidently that changing vram to 4 gigs doesnt improve anything significantly and in fact has some negative effects in a few games. And how are you even adding up frames like that? If Vram increases the fps by 1 fps then thats it (which isnt even the case here, since at some points 4 gigs even had 1 fps LESS than 1 gig)..
cryobyte 33 has extensively shown where the performance increases exist for running 4GB over 1GB, in combination with increasing the pagefile and its swappiness value. I stongly suggest watching those for some more context. As stated its not going to work for everything but there are instances where it makes a huge difference. For that reason and in support of your argument of a negligible difference, why not just leave it at 4, where it will hugely help on some and within margain of error on the rest?
because when i put it at 4gb, my fan goes crazy for nothing because it needs more ressources, even with fps lock so no 1gb is fine for me
@@chuck25 That's not how it works. It doesn't 'need more resources' nor does it consume more resources, nor does more memory equal higher fan speed in any scenario,
@@chuck25 sounds like you have a separate issue bro 🤣
@@beefyonyt it had , they gave me another one and no issue at all
Yeah those extra 2-3 frames is gonna be huge loll
I did it for elite dangerous odyessy on deck big screen mode.
No I didn't see any real framerate increase. The station and settlement framerates drop usually to the mid 20's.
What did absolutely notice is the chop went away. In land skirmishes there was always this stutter that would happen. That pretty much went away. Also getting in and out of vehicles was definitely shorter in the black screen time.
Thanks for contributing this information. I appreciate it
This method only matters if you're running Windows on your deck it does nothing if you're running it stock
Yep. This was to disprove certain claims ...
I changed it from 1GB to 4GB, but it's hard to notice any difference.
I also tried ps2 emulators Need for speed underground 2 where the game is so slow in the garage.
1 GB and 4 GB they both slow...
Yeah....
At this point I would also do a double check. could you try with 256 mb of Vram ?
i would keep it at 1gb idk why but 4gb is lag and 256m is freezing. hope this answers your question
Would using a higher swap file change anything as suggested in cryoutilities ?
I've had both a swap file on and off (1 vs 16) and frankly I haven't seen any differences.
Ok, thanks for testing. As you saw Steam would use all the vram when it needed and 4G increase would not change much. That was my thought as well, so I left it as it is.
Low med settings lock at 30 or 40
I’m getting this problem in 4gb vram where the fps will be improved but then every now and then I get a huge fps drop that makes the game unplayable, can’t even open up pause menu. Has happened in Gow and Spiderman and only in 4gb vram.
Yeah. I don't think 4gb VRAM should be used unless you're trying to solve a very specific problem.
im scared one of your component steam deck are overheating
Why does it impact RDR2 bad?
I don't recall... Reddit talked a lot about it. I already finished the game ages ago and haven't gone back to it on Deck.
If the APU needs more than 1GB and there is free RAM it will use more than 1GB. All the settings do is ensure there will always be at least some VRAM available. Leave it at 1GB seriously. It's not worth the hassle.
Yep ... This was a more "disproval" video than any thing.
Volume up
This seems very unscientific.
Truth is? It makes little difference on most gaming. In fact, some games it can harm (RDR2 for example). It can provide some stability on large open world games.